Officer Recovering After Serious Hit And Run
SACRAMENTO (CBS13) -- A Sacramento detective is on the road to recovery after being hit and dragged by a vehicle near a Roseville restaurant earlier this year.
On the afternoon of January 22, Sacramento Police Detective Bobby Daniels was standing outside a Chili's when he saw a Jeep barreling down on him and his family.
"I heard the first two tires hit the curb," Daniels said. The vehicle bumped onto the sidewalk as Payton's wife, Stephanie, helped push his daughter out of the way.
"We kind of locked eyes and he kept coming at me," Daniels said. "The next thing I know, I was up underneath the Jeep."
Stephanie said the driver, 20-year-old Ilio Arthur Wong, veered straight into her husband at about 40 miles per hour, dragging him underneath the vehicle and pulling him along.
"When I came to, my head was caught in the wheel well and I had a bolt that was stuck in my skull," Daniels said. "It took out about a one by one [inch] piece of my skull."
The impact was so disorienting that Daniels thought he had been involved in an accident in his own vehicle.
"I thought I was driving and I killed my family," Daniels said.
In the weeks since surviving the crash, Bobby and Stephanie opened Payton's Cupcake Place in Carmichael, named after their little girl.
Business has been great, but Bobby said he has been getting teased by fellow officers. "As a matter of fact, they call me Cupcake at work," he said.
Bobby is hoping to return to light duty at the Sacramento Police Department in about a month.
